Biometrics system tested at Sydney airport

The Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) recently assessed the technical performance of a new face recognition system being tested by Customs for screening Qantas aircrew arriving at Sydney International Airport. The new system, called 'SmartGate', augments the current 'face to passport photo' check manually undertaken by Customs staff.

DSTO was asked to participate in the analysis because it had the required scientific expertise to carry out a completely unbiased analysis.

The SmartGate system was developed by Customs, based on commercially available Cognitec Systems face recognition software. It operates by comparing images of a person obtained from cameras at the processing point with multiple images and passport data already stored in the system.

Before aircrew members can use SmartGate, they have to be enrolled into the system. Images of each person are taken by a five-camera array. These are encoded with the identity of the person to form a unique biometric template which is stored in a secure database.

A crew member arriving at the Customs control point proceeds to the SmartGate kiosk, which consists of a passport reader, cameras and gates. The crew member places a passport on the passport reader that scans the text on the passport to determine which stored template to extract from the secure database. The face of the crew member is then captured by a three-camera array and the images are compared with the extracted face template to see if there is a match.

If the match is successful and permission to enter Australia is granted, the entry gates open to allow the person through. If there is no match, the crew member is directed to a counter for manual processing.

Since SmartGate only compares one person with one extracted template, it can process a large number of people without loss of efficiency, regardless of how many people are in the database. Because of this, Customs is investigating the options for using SmartGate for processing all Australian passport holders.

To carry out the research, the Biometrics team defined a novel methodology, processed the data, and analysed and reported the results. The data for the study involved the enrolment of nearly 4000 flight crew and the processing of more than 32,000 checkpoint transits.

As part of the process, DSTO staff devised a new technique for analysing the error rates of the SmartGate system. The new method provided much more meaningful results than had been previously available, and significantly enhanced the information on which Customs will base decisions on the future of the system.

According to Biometrics task manager Jadranka Sunde, "The research is unique and relevant to defence and the biometrics community at large because it utilises operationally obtained data."

The work with the SmartGate system has allowed the DSTO team to further develop the skills and knowledge base that will be required to meet the growing need for defence research in biometrics technology.